


Gin and Other Coping Mechanisms

by aces



Category: Castle
Genre: Episode Related, Episode Tag, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-11
Updated: 2011-02-11
Packaged: 2017-10-15 13:50:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/161452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aces/pseuds/aces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Martha had only switched to rum when she’d run out of the gin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gin and Other Coping Mechanisms

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers/episode tag for 3x06, “3XK,” (serial killer ep, for those of you who have as much trouble remembering episode titles as I do), though this was also sparked by Martha’s scene in “Knockdown.”  
> Written for halfamoon on LJ.

Martha Rodgers was ready for him when he came in.

“How _dare_ you,” she flared as soon as the front door swung open and he stepped inside. “How _dare_ you, Richard Castle?”

Castle blinked. There was stubble on his chin and jaw, his coat was wrinkled, he had a sort of dazed look in his eyes, but Martha had been drinking steadily since immediately after calling Beckett to let the detective know her son was in trouble, and it was just turning daylight now, and she was in no mood to coddle him.

“Dad,” Alexis breathed, stepping around the kitchen bar—where she’d been trying to pull the rum away from her grandmother and having no luck—and running up to her father, latching onto him like a limpet. He clung back, kissing the top of her bright red head.

“Dammit, Richard!” Martha strode from the kitchen as well, still holding her glass, heels clicking magnificently. “I’m not finished! Alexis, you’re not helping,” she added sotto voce.

“Are you okay?” For once, Alexis dared to ignore her grandmother, not even sparing her a glance, keeping her gaze on her father. Alexis had been upstairs, probably dreaming over her Ashley-slash-secret-admirer, when Martha had called Richard and heard those fateful words; Alexis had been upstairs when Martha calmly called Beckett and requested that she save her son; Alexis had come downstairs, calling to Martha whether she knew where dad was when she found Martha working her way through the gin.

Martha had only switched to rum when she’d run out of the gin.

“Grams,” Alexis had said around midnight, after they’d received the frantic call from Richard that he was alive, he was alright, everything was fine—well, sort of fine, there was a serial killer on the loose and it was all his personal fault and Detective Ryan was being taken to the hospital despite all his protests and apparently in this case _Richard_ had to do paperwork, but everything was _fine_ \--“grams,” Alexis had said worriedly, “don’t you think you should stop drinking now?”

“Oh no,” Martha Rodgers had declared, “I’ve barely started.”

“I’m fine, honey,” Richard was saying now to Alexis, still holding onto her. “Really, sweetie, I’m _fine_.”

“What about Detective Ryan?”

Richard’s face softened, the way it only did for his daughter—not even Beckett got that expression, though she did engender other related expressions that neither of his ex-wives ever had. “He’ll be fine too,” he said, “and I’ll let him know you were asking about him.” His eyes narrowed, and he didn’t look away from his daughter, even though he raised his voice to include Martha-- _finally_ \--in the conversation. “Shouldn’t you have been in bed hours ago?”

“Dad,” Alexis exclaimed, “you think I was going to go to _sleep_? When you were still out there—”

“Yes,” Richard’s tone was inexorable, “I think you’re going to go to bed this instant because I fully expect you to go to school today in about, oh,” he checked his watch, “four hours.” He kissed her again, hugged her tight again, that dazed and haggard look back on his face, and if Martha wasn’t so angry she had a feeling she would be sobbing in a heap on the couch right now—elegantly, naturally. “Go on, honey,” he said softly, gently pushing Alexis toward the stairs, “I love you,” he added when she finally took a hesitant first step.

She turned back and caught his hand, her face crumpling into something terribly like grief—and it was about bloody time, Martha privately thought; Alexis had spent the entire night being strong for her grandmother, and Martha had let her because she didn’t think she could cope with both of them breaking down. “I love you too, daddy,” Alexis sniffled and then turned and ran upstairs.

Richard took a step after her, his own expression horrified, worried, stricken—oh, a hundred little emotions that Martha probably should have been breaking down and cataloging in case she needed to reproduce such a reaction on the stage at some future point; but Martha was too busy being angry at her son, and she had enough physical memory from her own ordeal over the past few hours that she was reasonably certain she could produce something similar when and as needed.

“Don’t you _dare_ follow her, Richard Castle,” Martha stormed up to him, pointing at him with her glass, “you leave her alone and let her cry herself to sleep; she has been making a martyr of herself all night by being strong enough for all of us and it’s about time the reaction set in.”

“I suppose she was strong all night,” Richard turned wearily to his mother, “because _you_ were not.” He plucked her glass out of her hand before she realized what he was doing, and he strode with it to the kitchen sink, dumping its contents.

“You are wasting perfectly good rum.” Martha stayed where she was. It was never good to make a strong move across the stage and then immediately follow it with another cross. She’d wait until she felt the impulse to move again. Instead, she folded her arms and glared at her son across the room. A much better way to hold power over and control the space.

“No,” Richard said, “you are. Mother, please. We’re both exhausted, you’re drunk, it has been a _hellaciously_ long night—”

“Dammit, Richard!”

Richard leant back against the kitchen sink, folding his own arms and looking at her. Stubble on his chin and jaw, and his wrinkled coat, and his lip had been split at some point during the night while he had been held hostage by a serial killer but the blood was mostly dried—

Martha felt suddenly dizzy, and she found herself sobbing in a heap in the corner of the couch after all.

Well, not sobbing, not _sobbing_ at least, but most definitely crying, and Richard had his arms gathered around her, and when had her son gotten so ridiculously big and protective and capable of enveloping his mother in his grasp, he was only a child, a little _boy_ , a little boy running around the apartment playing at make-believe like his mother, pretending that he was a cowboy or a ninja or a superhero, a little boy reading under the covers with a flashlight when he was supposed to be asleep and he never knew that _she_ knew, that she could see the light through the opened doorway when she came home from her show or after-show party, he never knew that she knew he read so late into the night in part because he was waiting up to make sure she made it home alright, her beautiful boy—

“You’re a fool, Richard Castle,” she sobbed into her son’s chest, “you’re a damned _fool_ and you almost got yourself killed tonight and I am no fit guardian for your daughter—”

“Hush,” Richard said, his hand running soothingly through her hair, “hush, mother, it’s alright, and you would make a wonderful guardian for Alexis and you know it, but it doesn’t matter because she doesn’t need one because I’m still here, I’m _still here_ , mother.” He dropped a kiss on the top of her head, the way he had for Alexis, and Martha was not ashamed to admit—if only to herself and to no audience—that she clutched at his arm a little more tightly. “I love you, mother,” he finished, a catch in his voice, and he gathered her more closely.

They rarely hugged. Martha sometimes wondered if that was why he was so affectionate with Alexis, because he had missed that closeness with his own mother. She knew she had been a bad mother, tried to make it up by being a better grandmother, and even now knew she would never directly and clearly state to her son how _proud_ she was of him.

She had finished crying. She pulled back, trying with utmost dignity not to sniffle, and found Richard holding a handkerchief at the ready. It made her laugh, even as she dabbed at her eyes—oh, what did it matter; her mascara and eyeliner were already shot to hell—and discreetly blew her nose.

She finally looked up and met her son’s eyes. “You,” he said with all sincerity, glee, and affection, “are going to have the _worst_ hangover.”

She put a hand up hesitantly to his lip, and the smile immediately slipped from his face. “No worse than yours,” she told him acerbically, once again Martha Rodgers, Broadway diva and utterly in control of herself. “In the past two-years-and-more, you have been in dangerous situations. You have almost gotten yourself killed. You have continued this idiotic habit of thrusting yourself in where both angels and devils would fear to tread, and Alexis and I have borne it with nary a protest or request that you think more about your safety.” Her hand moved to curve around his cheek, and she looked at him seriously, as honestly and _really_ \--not realistically--as she could. “I’m asking you now, Richard. _Please_ be more careful. For Alexis’ sake, if not mine or your own.”

His stubble was scratchy against her hand. He put his own hand over hers, then removed it from his cheek so he could kiss her palm. She sighed. “I’m not sure I can make that promise, mother,” he said with as much seriousness as she, “but I’ll try.”

“I love you, Richard Castle,” she told him. “If you tell anybody I said that I will disown you, but I love you, son, and I fully intend for you to outlive me. In person if not in spirit,” she added reflectively, standing and straightening her skirt. “We’ll see which is remembered longer, my performances or your books.”

Richard’s mouth curved upward in an irresistible smile—he had always bounced back from everything that hit him; apparently that included near-death experiences. Martha looked away, quickly, before she could start crying again. She was a _terrible_ mother, that her son could only tell her he loved her when he was about to die, that his telling her such set off such alarm bells ringing in her head that she had to call his lady detective to bring in the cavalry and save him. “My books, of course,” he said, standing as well. He gently took the handkerchief from her hand, despite her protest, and then he took her hand with his free one and gave it a squeeze.

“You’re not a terrible mother,” he said. “You did exactly the right thing, like I knew you would. And you’re not a terrible grandmother, and you’d still make a fabulous guardian _if_ Alexis needed one.”

“Stop reading minds,” Martha told him, “it’s very annoying in one’s son.”

“That, I can promise. Maybe.” He slung his arm around her shoulders and walked her toward the stairs up to their bedrooms. “I think I’m going to check in on Alexis before I fall into bed and not move for twelve hours,” he said lightly. “Care to join me?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Martha said, “she’s crying into her pillow this very instant, and by the way you _ruined_ a perfectly lovely secret admirer; the delight alone from discovering it was her romantic boyfriend should have carried Alexis straight through the weekend. Instead now she’ll be splotchy and tear-stained and miserable for days, and it’s all your fault.”

“Yes, it is,” Richard said comfortably as they went up the stairs, “and that is why I’m going to go in and check on her and let her cry all over my shoulder in case she needs to, like certain _other_ women in this household who shall remain nameless. Would you like to join me?” he repeated.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Martha told him, his arm still around her shoulders, “of course I would. Oh, and Richard.”

“Yes?”

“When you wake up from your twelve-hour nap, you’ll need to buy some more gin. We’re out.”


End file.
